About Me

Hi, I'm Michelle and I write Loomis Living to share the insights and experience of living a semi-rural lifestyle. I started Loomis Living in 2008 after moving to Loomis from suburbia. I grew up on 2 acres where I learned many of the gardening, building, and crafting skills I use today. On our small Loomis farm, we have 2 orchards, a large vegetable garden, and are raising chickens. For health reasons we follow a low sodium diet, so most of my recipes are made from scratch and omit sources of sodium.

Friday, March 30, 2012

This simple chowder is made from basic ingredients and is easy to make. I have made it twice and added some extra ingredients the second time (denoted with an *). I was able to make it for lunch in about 30 minutes.

While potatoes are cooking, saute onions, celery, pepper, and garlic in the oil until browned

Add the hot water to the pot. I boiled the water using my electric kettle (that I love!) then poured it into the pot. Adding the hot water de-glazed the pot and released any stuck-on pieces of vegetable from the bottom.

Add the vegetable stock, seasoning, parsley, and black pepper if desired. The first time I made this I used the black pepper and it added a bit of spicy flavor. I omitted it the second time so we could feed it to our 14 month old daughter and not worry about it being too spicy.

When the potatoes are cooked, cut them into fourths or eights and add to the pot.

Add the frozen corn and bring the soup back to a boil.

Add the green onions and greens and cook for 3-5 minutes until the greens are tender

Photo of batch #2 with the added ingredients

The added ingredients from the second batch really add some fresh flavor to the soup. There is a lot of flexibility with vegetable combinations and levels of spice. This is another one of the recipes that will help clean out your refrigerator of aging vegetables.

Friday, March 23, 2012

Sewing has become one of my go to hobbies because it is easy to start and stop (due to short naps) and can be done even when the weather outside is unwelcoming. I follow several sewing blogs, one of which is Made By Rae. I have followed several of her tutorials and have made some really cute items. Maybe one day I will blog about some of them and share some photos.

The fabric I used is Indian Flower, "Small Packed Flower/Gold" by Legacy Studio that I found in the clearance bin at Beverly's. The white is some fabric from Joann's that I had leftover from a quilt. I would say that getting the straps set correctly was probably the most time consuming part of this pattern. It also gave me a chance to try out making ruffles on my new serger, which worked fantastically.

I have already started my second top and I look forward to trying out some new techniques.

Monday, March 12, 2012

This soup was a result of an overflowing refrigerator with vegetables that were a little past their prime. I decided that a Vegetable Curry would be a great way to use the vegetables and some of the cans of coconut milk my husband acquired en mass when they were on sale a few weeks ago. I suspect any assortment of veggies would yield a similar result. Here is a combination that we really enjoyed.

Directions
1. Saute the yellow onion, garlic, and leeks.
2. Add the water and bring to a boil.
3. Add the celery, green onions, carrots, pepper, cilantro and continue to boil.
3. Place the ginger, jalapeno, and lemongrass into a spice ball or cheese cloth and add to the soup.
4. Add the spices, coconut milk, sweet potato, and yam and cook until tender
5. Just prior to serving, add the sliced kale and cook just until it is softened.

We ate this over brown rice with garlic shrimp on top. Hope you like it as much as we did.